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Merlyn Forrest Steele couldn’t refuse the offer—work for a living for one month, and her father would stop his clumsy matchmaking attempts. Maybe she’d somehow find a man who had eyes for her, not her bank account, and meanwhile, she could prove she was no dilettante heiress.
So it was ironic that the first man to penetrate her defenses in her new life would be the one who was looking for just that…Not that she’d have the sardonic, arrogant Cameron Thorpe, even if he asked her. Let him go ahead and marry some insipid little heiress—he’d get exactly what he deserved…But why did this thought give Merlyn no comfort at all?
Also available from MIRA Books and DIANA PALMER
THE RAWHIDE MAN
CATTLEMAN’S CHOICE
FRIENDS AND LOVERS
DIAMOND GIRL
PASSION FLOWER
CHAMPAGNE GIRL
ROOMFUL OF ROSES
AFTER THE MUSIC
ONCE IN PARIS
RAGE OF PASSION
PAPER ROSE
FIT FOR A KING
MOST WANTED
Lady Love
Diana Palmer
MILLS & BOON
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For Shirley and Cordia
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Merlyn Forrest Steele’s eyes were the same shade of green as her father’s, but Jared Steele’s had a twinkle that, at the moment, she was too angry to match. She glared at him from the plush white depths of the horseshoe-shaped sofa, its covering emphasizing the jet blackness of her long hair.
“It’s all your fault,” she told him shortly.
His eyebrows arched. “What is?”
“Adam.”
He gave a world-weary sigh and stuck his hands deep in the pockets of his charcoal gray suit pants. His silver mustache twitched as he frowned. “I see what you mean,” he confessed. “I meant well.”
“I didn’t mean your matchmaking attempts,” she explained. Her hand smoothed a wrinkle in her green silk slacks. “I meant the fact that you’re so rich.”
“I often think of donating my fortune to charity and throwing myself on the mercy of strangers,” he murmured, tongue-in-cheek.
She glared at him again. “I never know if it’s me or your money that men want,” she said. “Adam seemed to be head over heels in love with me, and I was…warming to him. Then I found out that he only got engaged to me because he had dreams of becoming your business partner! Now where in the world did he get an idea like that? Especially since he works for a rival computer company!”
Her father turned away and looked out the window. “Look at that sun,” he said with enthusiasm. “Imagine, it’s spring already!”
“Evading the issue, huh?” she challenged.
He hunched his shoulders and glanced at her. “Well, darling, you aren’t ugly,” he reminded her.
“I’m not poor, either—that’s the trouble.”
“He seemed like a good prospect,” her father murmured defensively.
So he had, Merlyn thought. Her father had introduced her to Adam James at a party. Jared Steele felt that, at twenty-six, his only child was ripe for the joys of wedded bliss. So for the past year he’d been flinging unsuspecting males at Merlyn’s feet in what she considered a pathetically obvious way. If her mother had still been alive, perhaps her father would have been too occupied to bother Merlyn. But, as it was, he was determined to marry her off, and no eligible bachelor of reasonable means escaped his eagle eye.
Adam James had seemed to be a prize catch. A minor executive in a rival computer company, he had come to Jared’s attention at a computer conference. Her father had dragged him home to Merlyn as proudly as a hunting dog carrying a duck in its mouth.
Adam,
